My Daughters Chose a Woman Chained in the Middle of the Market as Their Mother, and When She Saw the Blanket, My Father Turned Pale

At the moment when my daughters pointed at the woman chained in the middle of the market and said, “We want this woman to become our mother,” the only thing worse was that the people began to laugh.

It happened in the Ures market, on Tuesday, at eleven o’clock in the morning. The smell of roasted corn and hot dust hung in the air. I had a sack of flour slung over my shoulder, and in my other hand I held a small leather boot bought for Clara.

“Father, we want that woman,” said nine-year-old Clara.

Ines, who was seven, grabbed my jacket.

“Let her be our mother.”

The whole market seemed to fall silent in one moment. Then someone snickered.

But I looked at the chain. The woman was sitting beside a wooden post of an old warehouse. Her wrists were swollen, a thin line of dried blood was visible on her forehead, and white dust had stuck in her hair. But she was not crying. With her eyes she looked at the soldiers standing around as if she were stronger than them.

Her name was Lus Buitimea. That is how I learned it.

“Let’s go home,” I whispered.

“No,” Clara told me. “Yesterday she gave her water to a sick woman. When a soldier struck a child, she stepped in front.”

Ines repeated an old phrase of her mother’s:

“Mother acted like that too. She stood in front of frightened people.”

Rosalia was taken from me by a fever two years ago. Since then, at our little ranch, I bought only what was necessary and every morning tried not to let the girls notice how empty the house was.

“You do not know what you are asking for,” I told them.

“We do,” Clara answered. “We do not forget Mother. We simply want a person like her, alive.”

Those words struck me in the chest.

Then Balthasar Serrano appeared. Rosalia’s older brother had always walked as if the whole village belonged to him. A silver-colored ring shone on his hand.

“What kind of father allows children such nonsense?” he shouted.

“They are children.”

“They are my sister’s children. And you are making them forget their mother’s name.”

I approached the commandant. He said that Lus had helped workers who had fled the estate of Laureano Velez and owed a debt. There had been neither a trial nor a witness.

“How much is this debt?” I asked.

Balthasar grabbed me by the arm.

“You will not spend money on this woman.”

I freed my arm. I sold two cows right there and left my watch as collateral. On paper I demanded a seal and signature that Lus was free. They removed the chain.

Lus rubbed her wrists.

“I am not asking for your obedience,” I told her.

“Then what do you want?”

“Spend several days at my ranch. Then decide for yourself.”

Clara held out a small blue ribbon left by her mother.

“You do not have to become Mother today. Just do not leave in chains.”

For the first time, Lus lowered her eyes.

In the evening she entered our house. The smell of burnt coffee and roasted corn stood in the kitchen. She checked every door and window as if expecting a trap. Ines spread Rosalia’s embroidered blanket over a chair.

Lus froze in place.

There was a small red flower embroidered in the corner of the blanket. Lus placed a finger on it and her face changed.

“Whose was this?” she asked.

“Mother’s,” Clara answered.

Lus closed her eyes. When she opened them, fear had replaced distrust.

“Then I must tell you everything,” she said.

I gripped the cup on the table so tightly that the clay dug into my fingers.

“I knew Rosalia long before her death,” Lus continued. “And what your mother had hidden will frighten Laureano more than my chains.”

At that moment the sound of a horse’s hooves came from the yard. The door opened and Balthasar entered, holding a folded document.

“Gabriel,” he said, “as long as this woman is in your house, you also become guilty.”

Lus seized the blanket and touched with her fingernail the flower embroidered in the corner.

“No,” she whispered. “First he must see what your wife was hiding.”

Then she opened the blanket’s seam and slipped her fingers inside…

Lus carefully took out a small bundle wrapped in oiled cloth. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the wall clock.

“Rosalia left this for me,” she said.

Balthasar stood in front of the door, and all color had left his face.

“Put that on the ground,” he ordered.

“I no longer have to listen to orders from you,” Lus replied.

I looked at the bundle. The same red flower that Rosalia had embroidered on the blanket was on the cloth. My heart began beating fast.

“Why did she never tell me about this woman?” I asked.

Lus looked at me.

“Because they would have wanted to kill you if you learned the truth.”

Clara took my hand.

“Father, was Mother involved in something bad?”

“No,” Lus said. “Your mother was braver than you ever knew.”

The corner of an old photograph appeared from the bundle. In it, a young Rosalia stood beside Lus on the riverbank. Both wore the same round copper medallion around their necks.

Balthasar suddenly closed the door.

“Leave here immediately,” he told me.

“Why are you so afraid?” I asked.

He did not answer.

Lus turned over the back of the photograph and read aloud the words written there:

“‘If anything happens to me, take the evidence to the person who believed in me even after my death.’”

I froze. I had always thought Rosalia’s last letters had been burned.

Lus began opening the bundle, but outside the sound of horses was heard again. This time several riders were coming.

“They are here for us,” she said.

And before I could run to the door, a small metal key hidden beneath the document rolled onto the floor…

The metal key fell to the floor and rang sharply against the wooden plank. Balthasar reached toward it, but I stepped in front of him.

“Step back,” I told him.

“You have no idea what you are doing.”

“People tell me that often now.”

It was seven o’clock in the evening. Outside, the horses snorted, and three men waited silently beyond the door. Lus placed the bundle on the table and picked up the key.

“Rosalia told me that if I reached you, we were to open this lock beneath the old water mill,” she said. “But the evidence is here too. She knew I might not get there.”

Clara looked at the photograph.

“Lus, did you know Mother?”

Lus could not answer for a long time.

“I am her sister.”

The air in the room seemed to disappear.

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Your mother Rosalia was half Yaqui. Our mother, Maria, was from the Yaqui community and was forced to work at Laureano’s estate. Rosalia was taken to the city as a child, while I remained across the river. Years later we found each other.”

Balthasar struck the table with his fist.

“That is a lie! Rosalia was of our family’s blood.”

“And of my family’s too,” Lus told him calmly. “You knew this. That is precisely why you helped Laureano.”

I opened the wrapped cloth. Inside were a notebook written in Rosalia’s hand, a list of several names, and receipts certified with Laureano’s seal. In each one, the workers’ debt had been increased for days when they had not worked at all. On the last page it said that Laureano caught people while they were fleeing across the river, took their lands, and held them with false debt.

Below, I recognized Rosalia’s handwriting.

“Gabriel, if you are reading this, it means I could no longer protect you. Trust Lus. Tell the girls that their blood is neither shame nor debt.”

Everything blurred in my eyes.

“Why did you hide it from me?” I asked Lus.

“Rosalia thought they would use it against you. She wanted to obtain safe evidence first.”

Clara placed her hand on the notebook.

“Was Mother afraid?”

“Yes,” Lus said. “But she still did what was necessary.”

At that moment the door shook. Balthasar called to someone outside.

“Take the documents! Search the house!”

I led Lus and the girls into the back room. But Lus suddenly took the notebook from my hand.

“This alone cannot bring down Laureano,” she said. “There is another name here.”

“Which one?”

She opened the last page. There was the name of the person who had not let Rosalia go to the doctor on the night of her death.

I looked at the name and my blood turned to ice.

It was Balthasar.

The lock on the door broke from outside. But Lus immediately shook her head.

“It is even worse, Gabriel. Rosalia did not leave this evidence only for us. One copy has already been sent to the city, to the person who will arrive here tomorrow morning. And if he knows that the notebook is with us, Laureano is not going to stop tonight…”